January 25, 2011

This is the car I want, reading a paper and drinking a coffee is my idea of a commute! I just hope the driver in the front who is leading the train of autonomous vehicles doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel, have a heart attack or have a drinking problem.

“SARTRE has been researching and developing a new system that enables a convoy of cars to be autonomously led behind a vehicle manned by a professional driver. The lead vehicle of the “train” isn’t anything special – just a cargo truck – but the Volvo S60 on his six is outfitted with a range of sensors, monitors and motors which allow it to follow in its path. A network of these vehicles could tuck in behind each other and allow the drivers to sit back, enjoy a cup of coffee and get through the morning paper on their way to work.”

in other words, an enormously expensive and technologically intensive way to mimic the functions of a simple bus, but done using an enormously expensive, large, and resource inefficient train of individual automobiles each burning fuel.

If the energy crisis gets bad, then public transportation might do it, real trains might do it, people living closer than 50 miles from where they work might do it.
Simply virtually chaining all the same single-commuter containing SUV’s together in a long inefficient train won’t do a damn thing.

I listened to a program about this on Radio 4 (in the UK) a few weeks ago. They were suggesting that at this time only 3 cars could potentially be used in the ‘train’ which I didn’t think was going to be that useful. Obviously there is an issue that the longer the train becomes the greater the risk that an obstruction ahead changes from the lead car… and of course blocking people getting on or off the road using the exits. Will be interesting to see where this goes.

The dumbass world is trying to take away one of the best stuff man have, the pleasure of changing gears, step on the gas, take over a few cars, and everything because some shit humans cant drive without help….. just shoot them and keep out of tha way.